1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to wireless communication and in particular to wireless communication devices. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to a method, system, and device for reducing unauthorized use of a wireless communication device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Wireless communication has experienced very rapid growth in recent years and that growth continues to increase as demand for wireless service expands. In some developed countries, telephone communication via handheld wireless devices (e.g., cellular phones or cell phones) is catching up to and may eventually surpass conventional communication via landline (public switched telephone networked (PSTN)) phones. The portability of these handheld phones along with the expansion of services/features provided by the phones are among the driving forces behind this increase proliferation and utilization of cellular phones.
While portability of the cell phones makes them more attractive as a personal/business communication device, their portability, along with other factors, makes cellular phones easy targets for thieves. Thus, as improving technology results in smaller phones with more expansive features and thus higher cost, cellular phone theft is also increasing. When theft of the cell phone occurs, the owner (who typically subscribes to a particular calling plan with a service provider) would like to be able to protect himself/herself from having the thief make unauthorized calls on the device that may ultimately result in very high costs to the subscriber. For example, these unauthorized calls may include calls to international numbers or calls outside a local calling zone that are charged at a premium to the subscriber.
It is not uncommon for unscrupulous people to “borrow” and/or “use” another person's cellular phone without the owner's permission/authorization. The owner may feel comfortable leaving the cell phone out in an area that is accessible by the other people (family or co-workers) and later find out that a call was made to a number outside of his local calling zone, resulting in an unexpected charge to the owner. For those persons with geographic calling zones, for example, a call outside of the geographic zone is billed per minute to the user. While the user elects to not make such calls from his cell phone, a “borrower” may not be aware of the restriction or may not care enough to refrain from utilizing the cell phone to call outside the calling zone. International calls also fall into this category of (outside the calling zone) calls for users with nationwide calling plans. The subscriber/owner of the cell phone would like to prevent both thieves and “borrowers” alike from being able to place such calls using the subscriber's cellular phone.
Conventional methods of securing a cellular phone from fraudulent or unauthorized use typically involves some sort of internal locking mechanism that requires a user password to unlock the cell phone for use. Thus, many cell phones today have a locking mechanism that will lock down the outbound dialing capabilities of the phone as well as secure personal items on the phone, such as phone list, etc. How the locking feature is implemented varies across models; however, the basic operations tend to include a user choice of (1) manually locking immediately, (2) locking the phone only at power on, and (3) locking the phone when idle. To unlock the phone, the user has to enter a pre-established secret code.
To accommodate this locking function, the cellular telephone provides a dial lock function for disabling key input except for entry of a personal identification number (terminal identification number). This prevents unauthorized use by others when the phone is stolen or lost or borrowed. This feature also prevents/avoids erroneous key input when the phone is carried in a pocket or stored in a bag.
In such cell phones, the dial lock function becomes active by depressing a set combination of keys or by selecting the dial lock function from among an operation menu or by setting the menu to instantly disable key input except for entry of the identification number. When the user later inputs the identification number while the key input is disabled, the entry of the identification number releases the dial lock function to enable key input.
While the dial lock feature provides some security, most subscribers do not utilize this feature because it is cumbersome to unlock the phone all the time and the user may not remember to lock the phone after each use. Even when an automatic lock function is programmed on the phone, many cell phones are stolen and calls are made before the automatic lock enables on the cell phone.
Other security features have been suggested by various publications/patents. Among these are the following, which are presented along with their primary limitation as relevant to the latter description of the current invention.
PCT application, PCT/CA98/00572, describes a system and method for challenging a cell phone user to enter a security code when a number is entered on the phone that does not match one of a list of potential terminating numbers that are stored as entries in a database that is located on a switch or network connected to the switch. Looked at from another perspective, Patent PCT/CA98/00572 describes a database containing ranges of numbers that are either set by the user in advance, or added to the database individually upon authorization when the user attempts to place an outgoing call.
U.S. Patent Application No. 2002/0165012 describes a system and method for allowing or restricting wireless communication based on a predefined set of area codes and geographic position locations. Depending on which area codes are stored, calls made to the restricted area codes are not connected and/or calls made to the permitted area codes are connected.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,035,217 provides a single button wireless communication device that allows a user to place calls by speaking the destination number or associated word. The user verbalizes a name to connect to the phone number associated with the spoken name. The user may have to verbalize a security code or PIN before the name/phone number before the communication is allowed.
Despite these methods for providing security against unauthorized use, the present invention recognizes that limitations exist with each method, and the invention provides a different security method that is superior to each of the above described methods.